I noticed Filmaka’s Jason Haikara’s Facebook Posting announcing Shoot Magazine’s “New Director’s Showcase”. Filmaka member, Jonathan Newman had been selected to be showcased last year and good things came to him from this honor, so I paid attention to Jason’s posting. I submitted two of my projects “Race to the Sky” and “What Kind Of Planet Are We On?” just making SHOOTS’s deadline by the skin of my teeth.

Two weeks later, when checking my e-mail, I discovered a note from Roberta Griefer, publisher of SHOOT Magazine. When I read it, I actually gasped. Roberta was congratulating me on being selected for SHOOT’s New Director’s 8th Annual Showcase. Wow! “SHOOT” is a highly respected advertising/commercial production industry magazine and since I very much want to make commercials, I found this honor especially exciting!

I flew to New York for this event and was accompanied by LiveTribe Productions Executive Producer Karen Lavender and Producer Jamie Bullock both of whom play key roles in many of my projects including “What Kind Of Planet Are We On?” which was screened as part of this event. Kate Salvino representing Current Content Creation (whom I’ve recently signed with) also flew in from L.A.. Between the three of them, I was surrounded by smart & beautiful company.

This is it – the big she-bang, the grand finale. It’s our final theme of the Feature Film Competition. If you’d like to submit a few shorts and get picked to direct your own fully-funded, fully-produced feature, don’t delay – start charging your camera batteries!

HOW IT WORKS

Every month, from over 100 submissions, 10 Peer to Peer Winners and 5 to 10 Filmaka Selections are chosen as Entry Level Winners. Each gets $500 and the opportunity to make another film – a Jury Level submission – for which they will receive $1000 funding. TThe Jury Level films are judged by our FILMAKA JURY of world-class film professionals. Three Jury Level Winners are chosen from each theme, and at the end of the year, all Jury Winners compete in the final showdown.

Our final round theme is…

WILD CARD

The theme is…every previous theme. That’s right – you can submit a film that relates to ANY of the previous themes for the 2008-2009 competition. They are:

Race Against the Clock The Other Side
Smoke and Mirrors Hard Times
Fresh Start The Party
Pros and Con Games The First Day
On the Road Truth or Dare
Help Wanted Behind Closed Doors

If you’ve got a film on your hard drive that you didn’t finish in time to submit to a previous theme, now’s the time to finish it and get it down that modem line to us! PLEASE NOTE: YOU CAN NOT RE-SUBMIT THE SAME FILM YOU HAVE ALREADY SUBMITTED TO A PREVIOUS THEME. Your submission to this short film competition must be original. Re-submissions will be disqualified.

You have until DECEMBER 1, 2009, AT 24:00 HOURS to upload your short film to the WILD CARD competition. Be sure to read and follow the DELIVERY RULES and TERMS AND CONDITIONS before you submit.

So print that script, call the crew, and start laying down some bytes!

Here’s hoping everyone had a creative and productive week. Filmaka certainly did – we’re gearing up for what promises to be our busiest couple months ever. A few highlights:

DIRECTV: We are hearing that DIRECTV is “this close” to selecting the twenty finalists whose short films will be greenlit into production. The DIRECTV marketing team read and analyzed EVERY pitch and they were very impressed with everyone’s hard work and creativity.

PROS AND CONS: Jury level winners also have been announced. These three winners move onto the final round of our feature film competition. Congrats!

THE PARTY: Our jury is currently reviewing the jury level entries. Break a leg!

REED MARTIN: Filmaka spent several hours this week interviewing author Reed Martin (The Reel Truth). We’ll be rolling out his interview on Filmaka.com over the next several weeks. Thanks to the nearly 100 filmmakers from all around the world – Ethiopia, Argentina, South Africa, India, just to name a few – for submitting excellent questions. If you live in the LA area, Reed will be speaking at The Writer’s Store in Westwood Saturday, July 25 at 11:00am.

DO YOU WANT TO CONTRIBUTE TO OUR BLOG?: If you have a project you’d like to promote or contribute thoughts about filmmaking in general, we would love for you to write for our blog. Just e-mail jason@filmaka.com

I just wanted to give you an update that Filmaka has sent DIRECTV all of your pitches. Having read more than half of them (and I promise to read the rest in the next day or two), I can say “WOW”. We’ve done quite a few of these projects (Lincoln, Mustang, Cisco, Red Bull, Miller, etc) but each of them is unique in its own way. One thing that is always consistent, though, is your creativity. Although the pitches did contain some common themes (family, couples), they all had some unique characteristics. Thanks again for making us proud. What happens next? Well, DIRECTV will take about a week to review the pitches as well as your previous work (which is why keeping your Filmaka profile up-to-date is so important). We’ll certainly weigh in with our thoughts but, ultimately, the final decision rests with DIRECTV. Stay tuned.

As for the Digital Rights Group UK-sponsored “Hard Times” competition, we hope to announce the Entry Level Winners within the next week. Filmmakers selected their top ten and now it’s DRG and Filmaka’s turn. We like to announce them all at once so everyone has the same amount of time to produce their second film.

Jason here. A quick post at the end of a long day. Thanks to everyone who entered Filmaka’s DIRECTV Film Challenge. We received close to 200 entries which makes it one of our most successful competitions – especially since it was open to US citizens only. I think I must have read about 60 myself today and so did my colleague Carolyn. Our goal is to power through the rest by the end of the day tomorrow and then begin working on a presentation to submit to DIRECTV by the end of the week. We’ve been very impressed with what we have seen so far. DIRECTV is known for its bold creative and we think they’ll be pleased. THANKS to everyone who entered. We know you put a lot of time and energy into your submissions and are greatly appreciative.

This round’s theme is about illusions, deceptions and mirages – the tricks of the magician, whether he – or she – uses them for entertainment or for darker purposes. Of course, your film doesn’t have to be about a professional magician – plenty of politicians and Sunday school teaches have mastered these skills! Upload your 1-3 minute film about SMOKE & MIRRORS by Sunday, JUNE 21st and you could win $500 to $3000, plus the chance to have your feature film produced, with you as director!

If you are new to Filmaka, the process is: make this film; your peers and Filmaka execs then vote; if you are selected as an entry level winner, you make a second film; that film is voted on by the Filmaka jury (Werner Herzog, Bill Pullman, Neil LaBute, etc); if you place in the top three, you make it into the final round for feature film funding. Got it?

Say CONGRATULATIONS to the winners of THE FIRST DAY JURY LEVEL COMPETITION. First and second place will receive $3,000 and $2,000 cash prizes, respectively. All three Jury Level Winners are now in the final round of competition for funding of their feature film. Check out their winning entries – and past Jury Winners – on our WINNERS CIRCLE page.

The following lucky (and talented) filmmakers have managed to pull it off again – these are our ENTRY LEVEL WINNERS for FRESH START! Each will receive a $500 cash prize for winning, plus the offer of $1000 in funding, should they choose to submit to the Jury Level round of this competition. Well done, ladies and gentlemen, well done!

Welcome to Filmaka!

Filmaka, the vision of independent film producer Deepak Nayar (Bend It Like Beckham, Buena Vista Social Club)and Thomas Augsberger (Mr. Brooks, Waiting) is a global creative community and video entertainment studio. The community is powered by a series of competitions which reward filmmakers with production budgets, cash prizes, diverse employment opportunities and potential management and talent agency representation. Stay updated by subscribing to the RSS feed.